Thursday, February 3, 2005

A Gem from a Non-Poet

But I read this in Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus this morning, and had to share it with someone. Jay Nordlinger is my favorite writer/editor/columnist/journalist/pundit/whatever.

I wonder, is it normal for people not particularly interested in politics to have a favorite pundit? I probably don't agree with him on everything under the sun, but still ...

It's just that I love his writing. He also happens to love Dubya and classical music. And he's such an expert in both politics and music that people pay him to write intelligent things about both for a living. He can write even the most erudite and controversial things with such a disarmingly friendly style that, whenever one of his columns shows up on National Review Online, I smile and think to myself, "That's my friend, Jay!"

Once the Hubster was watching some annoying show on Fox News and I came out from practicing my Bach, and I saw this unfamiliar balding guy being interviewed. At the bottom of the screen, it said, "Jay Nordlinger." I let out a happy little squeal of recognition, pointed at the screen, and exclaimed, "That's my friend, Jay!" (He didn't look anything like I'd imagined, though.)

Poor Hubster just looked up at me and said, in a most intelligent tone of voice, "Huh?" (He's used to seeing me act this way when Benjamin Bratt is on the screen, but not when right-wing pundit-types are on Fox News.)

Anyway, enough tangent-chasing. Here's what Jay wrote:

Sure, the president has made mistakes, as anyone would in a job so big (and as we all do, in jobs much smaller). But I believe that history will remember him as a man who did miraculous things for liberty — and hence for the well-being of the world — in the first decade of the 21st century. And his critics will seem like so many gnats around the ankles of a great, beneficent beast.

I'd wager to say that he's right on the button. You can read today's entire Impromptus column here.